It has been a good year for Donald Zuckerman. He’s hoping for a repeat.

Last spring, the newly minted commissioner of Colorado’s Office of Film, Television and Media persuaded lawmakers to fund an innovative $4 million incentive program to lure film and television producers to the state, ending an eight-year effort to bolster film funding. It turns out the push for funding continues.

In February, after a slow start, he landed three films, adding to a list that now includes a Coors commercial, post-production work and three television series.

But his incentive program is out of money. He’s lobbying lawmakers for additional funding.

“We can now show the legislature that by investing a little more than $3 million, we are getting back $21 million in post-production spending,” said Zuckerman, adding that production spending stirred $41 million in economic benefit to the state.

A 2011 University of Colorado Leeds School of Business economic analysis of a Colorado film-incentive scenario showed that every dollar invested would yield $5 of production spending and nearly $10 in economic activity.

On his way to Cripple Creek to woo television producers eyeing locations for a Hallmark television series (Telluride, Georgetown, Central City and Silverton also could host the series, set in 1910), Zuckerman tallied his successes for the season.

The producers of The Weather Channel’s “Prospectors,” which recently confirmed a second season, spent $1.8 million in the state, earning $360,000 in rebates.

Discovery Communications is moving almost $2 million in post-production work to the state, qualifying for $390,000 in rebates and creating about 40 full-time film-production jobs.

The movie “Dear Eleanor,” produced by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, earned $500,000 in rebates and a $300,000 loan guarantee for spending $2.5 million while filming in Colorado.

Rocky Mountain PBS filmed 13 episodes of its “Colorado Experience” series, qualifying for $66,000 in rebates. It doesn’t sound like much, but that cash “played immensely into actually doing it,” said Julie Speer, executive producer and director of the series.

“I had reached out to different funders, and really no one was committing, but when we got the incentives, the train left the station and it was happening,” she said. “It encouraged funders, and it also, in a way, validated the project.”

“Caribou Records,” a film about the legendary recording studio above Nederland, secured a $350,000 loan guarantee and a $1.5 million rebate on projected production spending of $7.5 million.

And the Hallmark Channel series could spend $8 million, which would qualify for $1.6 million in rebates and a loan guarantee of $800,000. But finding that money is proving troublesome.

The Colorado legislature’s Joint Budget Committee last week rejected a House-approved request to increase the film office’s incentive funding by $1.5 million.

Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, voted against the increased funding request. Citing reports that question the return on film-incentive investments — such as a 2009 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston study that scrutinized New England film-incentive programs — Lambert said aggressive lobbying is feeding an already-profitable film industry, while other industries that can’t afford lobbying falter.

“We have spent a considerable amount more this year than we did last year, and their lobby just keeps coming back for more and more funding,” he said. “I don’t think film incentives are proving out to be as high a priority as other things should be. If everybody stops paying these bills, every state will benefit. Maybe the states should boycott incentives and not fund it. They are still going to make their movies.”

Zuckerman said he is confident he can find additional funding, thanks to “various legislators who are extremely supportive of this program.” But even if he does, the Hallmark rebate will empty his program coffers until next year.

Colorado’s neighbors are ramping up film-incentive programs. New Mexico, which spends $50 million on film incentives, this month upped its rebate guarantee to 30 percent. Utah has seen a flurry of film production after increasing its rebate to 25 percent two years ago. (Other states, including Washington and Arizona, have ramped down or nixed incentive programs.) Thirty-seven states offer incentives, up from five a decade ago but down from a record 40 in 2010.

“The program is working well. We have been out of money since February,” Zuckerman said. “If we had the means, we could double the amount of production we have so far in the next six months. But we understand this is a process, and we started out with people who were very unconvinced this would work at all.”

Jason Blevins covers tourism, mountain business, skiing and outdoor adventure sports for both the business and sports sections at The Denver Post, which he joined in 1997. He skis, pedals, paddles and occasionally boogies in the hills and is just as inspired by the lively entrepreneurial spirit that permeates Colorado's high country communities as he is by the views.

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